Missouri Man Arrested At Hospital For Refusing To Leave His Partner’s Bedside

Roger Gorley was arrested earlier this week after a family member asked him to leave his partner’s side at the hospital, and he refused. Now a restraining order is preventing him from any visitation at all — a point contested by the hospital. [UPDATED.]

1. Early this week, Roger Gorley (pictured right) was arrested for refusing to leave the side of his partner at a hospital in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.

Roger Gorley told WDAF that even though he has power of attorney to handle his partner’s affairs, a family member asked him to leave when he visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Tuesday. Gorley said he refused to leave his partner Allen’s bedside, and that’s when security put him in handcuffs and escorted him from the building.

“I was not recognized as being the husband, I wasn’t recognized as being the partner,” Gorley explained.

He said the nurse refused to confirm that the couple shared power of attorney and made medical decision for each other. “She didn’t even bother to look it up, to check in to it,” the Lee’s Summit resident recalled.

4. Research Medical Center stated it cannot speak specifically about this case, but in a statement said:

“We believe involving the family is an important part of the patient care process. And, the patient`s needs are always our first priority. When anyone becomes disruptive to providing the necessary patient care, we involve our security team to help calm the situation and to protect our patients and staff. If the situation continues to escalate, we have no choice but to request police assistance.”

5. Roger Gorley posted a note regarding the incident to his Facebook Page:

Yesterday was a traumatic day for me. My daughter came out to my house to help me with my Husband and life partner Allen Mansell. He was suffering from some bad side effects from his medications and lack of ECT treatments due to the large snow storm that occurred a while back as well as the ECT facility forcing him to reschedule many times. (For those who don’t know ECT [electro shock therapy] is a commonly used treatment for individuals with severe depression. If you get off of your schedule AT ALL it can cause serious side effects. So he was exhibiting symptoms that were “normal” for what he was going through).

My daughter spent the entire day with him and even had her daughter, Lily (4.5 yrs old) with her. He was just sluggish and was slurring his words. With the chronic medical conditions that he has the best we (as family) can do is ensure he is hydrated properly, eating the right foods, taking his medicine on time, and providing a safe place for him.

Allen wanted to get his hair cut and the cats needed their food. So Amanda (my daughter) and him along with Lily went to the hair stylist to get his hair cut and then Hy-Vee for cat food. He was noticeably sluggish and slurring his words while in public but doing well and he was wanting to do these errands. We picked up lunch and headed home.

Upon arriving home Amanda was bombarded by police, paramedics, and Allen’s family. Lee, Allen’s brother, called the police, said he was a suicide risk (which he was not and ALLEN said so 4 times) but the cops “forced” him to go anyway b/c they said he was a danger to himself. So my daughter called me and the following story ensued…

6. The public has responded with anger on the hospital’s Facebook page: